Just so you know, it’s a bad time to be male in Japan. Even my brothers say the supermacho, sports-obsessed, chauvinist faux-samurai kanchigai (勘違い, have it all wrong). They say that society is so hard on men that if they were given the choice ...

Once upon a time, not so long ago, it was unusual for a Japanese woman to aspire to be anything other than a “good wife and wise mother”— an aspiration so predominant that the Japanese for it, ryosai kenbo, is a set phrase in ...